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Hot thing: How to cool sensitive skin
Give sensitive skin the cold shoulder
with the latest products to soothe,
smooth and calm.
By Marilisa Racco
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For women with sensitive skin, summer skin care is a hot topic. Allergens like ragweed can irritate, while pollution - which worsens in warm weather - can clog pores with grit and grime. Dr. Sandy Skotnicki-Grant, a dermatologist and medical director of the Bay Dermatology Centre in Toronto, points out that summer skin care is more challenging for women with specific skin problems - such as rosacea, which is inflamed by sun exposure - but agrees that more and more women are identifying their skin as "sensitive" and in need of special care. In fact, a recent survey by French skin-care brand La Roche-Posay found that 70 percent of women think their skin is sensitive. So, what do women mean when they use this term?
"'Sensitive skin' isn't a medical term; it's a colloquial one to describe easily reactive or irritated skin usually on the face," says Dr. Jaggi Rao, an associate clinical professor of dermatology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. "It typically appears as redness, swelling, itchiness and dryness."
Dr. Richard Thomas, a dermatologist at The Face & Skin Clinic in Vancouver and clinical assistant professor of dermatology at The University of British Columbia, divides sensitive skin into two categories: The first group includes medical conditions like eczema, rosacea and dermatitis; the second, harder-to-define group encompasses "those who have no history of skin conditions but complain of itching or burning from a variety of stimuli."
As Rao says, "Everyone will have sensitive skin at some point in their lives."
Regardless of which category describes your skin, helping it become as smooth as George Clooney's repartee is as much about what you put in your body as what you put on your face. Skotnicki-Grant says that women with rosacea should eliminate red wine because it contains tyramine, a compound that encourages blood vessels to open and causes an immediate flush. "The next day, patients can develop acne-like bumps on their nose and cheeks," she says.
The sun is a particularly dangerous foe for all sensitive-skin sufferers. "Excessive exposure to UV light causes inflammation and increased sensitivity," says Thomas. Skotnicki-Grant recommends steering clear of sunscreen ingredients like oxybenzone and Parsol 1789 (which can be too harsh on delicate skin) and instead choosing products that contain titanium dioxide (which has smooth, non-occlusive particles that won't rub against the skin).
Figuring out which products work best for sensitive skin is a daunting - and often individual-task, but, according to Skotnicki-Grant, here are the ground rules.
Quaternium-15, a preservative found in some cleansers and makeup that slowly releases formaldehyde - the embalming liquid - is on the list of ingredients to avoid. Sodium lauryl sulfate is a surfactant that adds lather and thickening power to shaving creams and cleansers but strips skin of its natural oils and leaves it primed for irritation.
Soap does the same thing. "Most soaps are very alkaline, which means that they have a pH of about 8," says Skotnicki-Grant. "This can be irritating to skin whose normal pH is 5 or 6." Non-soap cleansers, such as Spectro Jel and Cetaphil, are good substitutes, says Thomas, but avoid alcohol-based toners, which can aggravate and dry out skin. Facial scrubs and products with alpha- and beta-hydroxy acids are other no-nos.
Image courtesy of ImaxTree.com
Click here for more on sensitive skin.
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